Brandon Jacobs, 06.16.09

Q. How are you feeling?

A. I am feeling pretty good. I feel loose. I feel very healthy right now, which is good. I am ready to get this thing rolling.

Q. How do you feel about this team?

A. Our football team is taking one step at a time. I think we are doing it the right way. Guys are getting better, day by day, which is how it’s supposed to be. I’m very excited about our football team and I want to see what we can do.

Q. We were talking to Tom Coughlin and he said ‘the team has a bad taste in its mouth.’ What is your assessment of where that stands?

A. Oh, definitely, we have a very bitter, bad, disgusting taste. It hurts more than anything. We know how good we were last year and the opportunity we had in front of us. We did not take advantage of it the way we were supposed to. We have another crack at it and I think we are going to have the same kind of season. I think we are going to go a little bit further.

Q. A lot of the talk will be: can this team succeed without Plaxico Burress on the field? How does this team make people forget about Burress and move on?

A. You go out and win games. It is hard to forget about a player like that. With him, we had an identity from week one to week eleven when he went out. It is hard to bounce back, to find a new identity in the National Football League. Other teams get paid, too. It is not as easy as it was starting something new, that late in the season. Now we are starting on a fresh foot, and hopefully towards that time in the season we will still have all of our eggs in a basket.

Q. Are you happy to see them throwing the ball down the field and getting that safety off the line of scrimmage?

A. No question. If we get that safety out of the box, we can make a lot of noise in the running game. We can isolate some of our wide outs one on one. 

Q. How different is the approach this season compared to last season?

A. After the way last year ended, because we know we were supposed to be the defending champs again, we are very eager to get back out there and get another crack at it. We have Osi (Umenyiora) back; that is like another first round draft pick. He is going to come out there, screaming off the edge. That is what we needed last year. The sack production was down. Our defense did a great job last year, don’t get me wrong. You always miss a guy like Osi.